"A lot of mediums are humbugs, I grant you. Just as there are fakers in every profession. If there were no such thing as real money, there would be no object in making counterfeits. And some of the mediums have proven clearly that they are capable of real demonstrations."
"They are, hey? What's the use of mediums at all if the dead can really come back? If my friends who have died return to earth, why don't they walk straight up to me and say, 'Well, Peter Grimm. Here we are!' When they do that, I shall gladly be the first man to take off my hat to them and hold out my hand. But as long as they have to employ greasy mediums to make their presence known, and try to prove they are with me by knocking on tables and tipping chairs and scratching on slates, there is only one of two things to believe: Either mediums are fakes, or else folks all become imbecile practical jokers as soon as they die."
"Imbecile practical jokers!" repeated Kathrien, shocked.
"Yes," reiterated Peter Grimm. "That's what I said. And it's a mild way of putting it. Would any sane man play such tricks as the spiritualists attribute to our dead? It shatters every thought of the majesty of death. Would a sane live man walk into my house and announce his presence to me by rapping on a wall or tipping a table or scrawling idiotic messages on a slate or talking to me through some half-educated 'medium'? Would he——?"
"Yes, he would!" asserted the doctor. "He'd do all those things and more, if he couldn't make you see him or hear him in any other way. As to mediums,—why doesn't a telegram travel through the air as well as on a wire? Your friends could come back to you in the old way if you could but put yourself in a receptive condition. But you can't. So you must depend on a non-professional medium,—a 'sensitive'——"
"See, Katje," interpolated Grimm, "he has names for them all. All neatly classified like so many germs in a bottle. Well, Andrew, how many ghosts did you see last night? He has only to shut his eyes, Katje, and along comes the parade. Spooks! Spooks! Spooks! Nice, grisly, shivering, spooky spooks! And now he wants me to put my house in order and settle up my affairs and join the parade."
"Settle your affairs?" asked Kathrien puzzled.
"Oh, it's just his nonsense," Grimm hastened to assure her. "Andrew,"—he hurried on to turn the subject from dangerous personalities,—"you've seen a whole lot of people pass over to the Other Side. In fact, your patients seem to have quite a habit of doing that. Tell me: did you ever see one out of all that number come back again? Just one?"
"No," answered McPherson reluctantly. "I never did, but——"
"No," cried Grimm in triumph, "and what's more, you never will. Yet you——"